On Architecture

8. Then the Rhodians, freed from the war by the cunning of Diognetus, thanked him publicly, and decorated him with all honours and distinctions. Diognetus brought that helepolis into the city, set it up in a public place, and put on it an inscription: “Diognetus out of the spoils of the enemy dedicated this gift to the people.” Therefore, in works of defence, not merely machines, but, most of all, wise plans must be prepared.

9. Likewise at Chios, when the enemy had prepared storming bridges on their ships, the Chians, by night, carried out earth, sand, and stones into the sea before their walls. So, when the enemy, on the next day, tried to approach the walls, their ships grounded on the mound beneath the water, and could not approach the wall nor withdraw, but pierced with fire-darts were burned there. Again, when Apollonia was being besieged, and the enemy were thinking, by digging mines, to make their way within the walls without exciting suspicion, and this was reported by scouts to the people of Apollonia, they were much disturbed and alarmed by the news, and having no plans for defence, they lost courage, because they could not learn either the time or the definite place where the enemy would come out.

10. But at this time Trypho, the Alexandrine architect, was

11. In the same manner, when Marseilles was being besieged, and they were pushing forward more than thirty mines, the people of Marseilles, distrusting the entire moat in front of their wall, lowered it by digging it deeper. Thus all the mines found their outlet in the moat. In places where the moat could not be dug they constructed, within the walls, a basin of enormous length and breadth, like a fish pond, in front of the place where the mines were being pushed, and filled it from wells and from the port. And so, when the passages of the mine were suddenly opened, the immense mass of water let in undermined the supports, and all who were within were overpowered by the mass of water and the caving in of the mine.

12. Again, when a rampart was being prepared against the wall in front of them, and the place was heaped up with felled trees and works placed there, by shooting at it with the ballistae red-hot iron bolts they set the whole work on fire. And when a ram-tortoise had approached to batter down the wall, they let down a noose, and when they had caught the ram with it, winding it over a drum by turning a capstan, having raised the head of the ram, they did not allow the wall to be touched, and finally they destroyed the entire machine by glowing fire-darts and the blows of, ballistae. Thus by such victory, not by machines but in opposition to the principle of machines, has the freedom of states been preserved by the cunning of architects.

Such principles of machines as I could make clear, and as I thought most serviceable for times of peace and of war, I have explained in this book. In the nine earlier books I have dealt with single topics and details, so that the entire work contains all the branches of architecture, set forth in ten books.

FINIS